Now, the mid-nineties in Canada were a very special time and place to be a teenager. The alternative culture was inundated with the fuzzed-up sounds of post-grunge and first generation emo. California punk bands we're at the peak of their popularity, many of which releasing seminal records that are looked back on today with an intense nostalgic fondness.
Most importantly, at this time and place, the streets ran rainbow with the flood of great quality LSD. This was long before the days that 10 or so completely unrelated research chemicals could be slopped onto a sheet of blotter and passed off as acid for 10 bucks a hit to some unsuspecting kids, just looking to expand their minds.
Acid was cheap, popular, and of a certain quality at my high school. My older cousin, who was my friend, and high-school mentor/protector/liaison had a best friend whose father happened to be an accomplished chemist. No one seemed to put two and two together, or perhaps it just wasn't spoken aloud, but this best friend of my cousin seemed to have an infinite supply of blotter.
Acid was the first drug i ever tried, in the summer of 1994, a month before i was to enter high school. I had never smoked pot, nor had I once been drunk before that night i tripped for the first time.
Under the supervision of my cousin and his much older and wiser crew of 15 and 16 year-olds i experienced a pure, unadulterated, blissful and once-in-a-lifetime experience.
That was 1994. In 1997 a 16 year old lower-middle-class Canadian kid such as myself had a very slim chance - even with an impressive resumé of past exploratory drug use - of ever setting eyes on something like cocaine, or heroin. Hard drugs. That stuff didn't get around back then.
Maybe we had known some beautiful woman in our own grade or social circle that had managed to mature, physically and socially, at an accelerated rate. She hung around and japed and battled wits with us, laughing at our jokes and touching our arms.
We knew she hung around a crew of older guys, who had already escaped the existential dread of the high-school experience, and through the grapevine we would hear rumors of her occasional cocaine use. While we would let the propaganda we had been subject to as children run wild in our minds and rumor mills, face to face we wouldn't speak of it.
Not wanting to sully the potential of brief and innocent physical contact that later we would end up as the pivotal scene in another of our movies of the mind, during the typical late-night teenage-boy rituals.
Then, a party at her house. As the two of us innocently sat alone in a bedroom, she reached for a drawer and pulled out a copy of Weezer's Pinkerton, my favourite record at the time. The CD, however, was already in the record player, and as i hummed along to Pink Triangle and she began to speak, my eyes met the neat little piles of powder.
"You should try this" she said, staring deep into my eyes and not seeing the guilt behind them as her look sent tingles through my body. I made a mental note to remember this later, when i was alone at home.
Reluctant at first, she convinced me to roll up a 5 dollar bill, and snort the cocaine. As every single PSA i had ever been witness to flashed around in my head, I was overcome with fear and guilt. Oh no. I am doing cocaine. WHAT THE FUCK AM I DOING? I'm a drug addict. I'm the worst person. As i lifted my head from the CD, the cover decorated in some old Japanese art, she shot me a smile that immediately softened my self-loathing, and had the opposite effect on other things.
A minute later, our tongues were dancing around each other with reckless abandon. My mind raced and hooted and hollered and celebrated. This was amazing. I was making out with the girl no one could touch. Despite being the same age as me, she had just always seemed light years ahead, far too savvy, smart, and attractive to mess with another teenager.
As our mouths untangled themselves from the moment's naturally dwindling conclusion, it hit me. Cocaine isn't anything close to what i have been told. And i think i really like it.